DIRECT AND INDIRECT QUESTIONS

 

DIRECT AND INDIRECT QUESTIONS

In English, we have different types of questions; one of them are the indirect and direct questions.

Direct →

Direct questions are those we normally do face to face to a person:

·         What time is it?

·         Where’s the bank?

·         What’s your name?

These types of questions have usually only a subject and an auxiliary verb.

Indirect ⤭

Indirect questions are usually more formal as they have some “introductions” such as:

-       Can you (please) tell me….?

-       Would you tell me…?

-       Do you know …?

After that, we have the main information we want to know; however, we are going to do some changes. See the difference between a direct and indirect question:

What time is it?

Can you please tell me what time it is?

 

As you can see, in the direct question, we only have “it” and its auxiliary “is”, but in the second question, the indirect, we have the “introduction” where we can find the inversion of the question (you can – can you…?) and because of that, the phrase “what time it is” doesn’t change its order, its like an affirmative sentence. In other words, we have two different structures:

Direct	[Question word] + auxiliary + 😊 + [verb] + ? Examples: Where is the bank? What did the teacher assign as homework?
Indirect	Introductory question phrase + [question word] + 😊 + verb + ?   Examples: Can you please tell me where the bank is? Do you know what the teacher assigned as homework?

 

Apart from the WH- words (what, where, when, etc.) we can also use wether or if and these two words expect for a “yes/no” answer. For example:

Direct: Did he finish the project?

Indirect: Do you know if he finished the project?

IMPORTANT

As you can see, when we have an indirect question, we need to add an affirmative sentence after the introductory phrase (See example 2). Therefore, you need to be careful to respect the tense you’re supposed to be using. See the chart with different tenses in indirect and direct questions.

Direct: had he arrived before the accident?	Indirect: Do you know if he had arrived before the accident?
Direct: did he arrive before the accident?	Indirect: Can you tell me if he arrived before the accident
Direct: Does he ever arrive on time?	Indirect: would you tell me if he ever arrives on time?
Direct: Where are your parents going on their anniversary?	Indirect: Do you know where your parents are going on their anniversary?